no influenece

[ScottM]

I debated whether to reopen this because b4uqzme replied with a series of really very good posts, and for the most part I agree with them. If nothing else, they reflect a thoughtfulness that helps clarify subtleties that are otherwise completely lost on a crowd that would prefer to stick with pre-digested talking points and rallying cries. I also wanted to thank kncali for considering multiple perspectives without feeling threatened.

I did want to offer a few additional details and alternative takes for thought.

Sure. Scott's story talks about the creation of a risky financial derivatives market and the subsequent real estate bust that sent our economy spiraling. But the story actually starts several decades before with the government getting in and out of the way and creating a market for those derivatives. Scott's story actually is a textbook example of my point. Had the G stayed out from the beginning, there never would have been an artificially inflated real estate market that created the opportunity for the derivatives market. The subsequent bust is the free market making a correction for all the previous monkey business. The price system will always move towards equilibrium. Note: monopolies do not operate at the market equilibrium. That's why Scott's assessment that free market economics breed monopolies is false. Yes, they can appear in the short run but only government intervention can keep them there.

You're right, the story doesn't begin there (even with my long post I had to end it somewhere), and absolutely, the government's encouragement of banks to lend and homeowners to more easily qualify for property and loans they couldn't afford was another key part of the problem. So was decades of deregulation. Each administration, dem or rep, tends to stimulate their own favorite parts of the economy for their own legacy's sake, and each corporate board does the same. Wall Street and the Fed and Treasury are revolving doors with each other. Morgan Stanley, JPMorganChase, (former) Bear and Lehman, Citi, BofA, you name it - they all swap talent on a weekly basis and I couldn't count how many of my coworkers did just that. So to your point, I'd agree that regulations are often a part of the problem, as they are manipulated by companies to act in their favor. Heck, the creation of those regulations is usually done in concert with those being regulated. One of the best examples this decade is the creation of financial regulations (i.e. Dodd Frank) that heavily favor large banks because they're the only ones who can cost-efficiently meet the regs - we see this in I.T. in all its glory.

With that, though, I'm not sure I can agree with the conclusion that monopolies can only sustain with government's help, because I can't think of an adequately anarchist place and time in history where there was also a vibrant economy capable of such a test. Maybe underworld economies provide an example here? Or not - they exist in direct opposition to (and thus support from) the law. I think because of that it's not a useful statement because I can't imagine the American people allowing for a sufficient movement towards economic purity for long enough to say for long. My bet is that free-reigned commerce would pounce on the public like a cougar on a rabbit and we'd be back to regulations. That is what has happened with financial regs after all.

^^^ economics is a big picture discipline. It is too easy to look at a small snippet of the market, a few events, and project from them grand assumptions about the whole economy.

Agreed, and that is why both positive and negative jobs numbers, consumer confidence, stock indexes and everything else tell only a part of the story. Additionally, all economies are as much micro as they are macro. For example, high tech in northern Cali is boom, boom, booming and so are all the support sectors in that area. Not so in manufacturing-centric northern Ohio. Different industries, different geography, different economic pressures. Not all of those factors are to the credit or fault of the president and economic policy - so often they're just those markets doing what they do.

^^^^ regarding "megacorps". It is commonly assumed that conservatives are in bed with the megacorps. Well I'll agree with you that conservative politicians are usually in bed with them. And I'll argue that liberal politicians are too. Please don't confuse the principles of free market economics with the manipulations of corrupt politicians. Conservative PEOPLE want to limit the role of government so our economy cannot be so easily corrupted. Any of this making sense yet?

I'd agree with that. Liberals conversely don't trust corporations to do the right thing based on what they've seen in the past (like, 5 minutes ago). Both are correct in my view - there are times when regulations and penalties are absolutely required, and other times when they're ridiculous overkill and hurt more than they help. It is in that very vein why 99% of my posts on KahrTalk search for the subtleties in the middle. Blanket statements about the evils of government, common social interest, Marxism, Hitler and the like reveal (not by you b4uqzme) an unwillingness to think beyond they safety of conservative groupthink. Conservatism exercised to perfection results in a closed, anticompetitive and backwards theocracy. That's not what the founding fathers had in mind.

And anyway...what's so scary about monopolies in the long run? What if, back in the day, I had a monopoly on cathode ray tubes? Would the world be worse off today? I'd just be a little richer and we'd all still be sitting at our touch screens.

Well, touch CRT screens maybe, because it's likely you would have extended your monopoly to maximize profits while keeping R&D expenses down. And everyone would work for Sylvania. :-)

Correct. I'm just trying to articulate what our co-members understand in their guts. It manifests as a general distrust of government intervention. And it's not a bad thing.

Agreed, it's not a bad thing at all, as long as it also doesn't cast aside a healthy mistrust of corporate interest. Unfortunately most members here seem unwilling to take corporatism off its alter and more thoughtfully consider the effect of market abuse by private hands. Without that full perspective, anti-government rhetoric is just ideology, no more valuable than that, and it drives swing voters like me away from ideologues.

To not understand free markets is to not understand incentive. The desire to better oneself is very, very powerful. One could argue that a greater and greater segment of America is losing that desire. Many fault corporations. But they only want to sell you things so they can make money...and give you jobs so you can make their things and afford to buy their things. It is the government that has thrown up roadblocks and bred a culture of entitlement...

I argue that the desire has not diminished. But because so many feel helpless and hopeless, their desire is projected as jealousy and destructive behavior.

I agree, the entitlement mentality is a costly disease in so many respects. The perverse thing is that living off the system is only a step away from being exploited as cheap labor, so to many, that's the only hope they have by pulling up their bootstraps - a minimum-wage job at poverty level without healthcare if the ACA is repealed. I don't have a unified solution because it would have to be dynamic to individual micro-economies, but it's likewise selective to blame liberal politics and government intervention for economic disenfranchisement.

Anyway, I wanted to end my post with appreciation again for b4ugzme's thoughtful posts. They're quite a bit more substantive than the repetitive "der tak'n r jahbs" posts that are too common here and on the interwebs.

[b4uqzme]

As I am at the limits of my ability to clearly explain my thoughts on this discussion, I will let one of the masters speak for me in counterpoint to Scott's eloquent rebuttal. Scott I appreciate your kind words yet I also detect some jabs at my POV and my good friends here on the forum. But I think they are harmless in the long run and I think these discussions give us the chance to delve deeper into...and understand more clearly...what we feel but sometimes cannot articulate. On that we agree.

It's quite a long video at 42 minutes but Professor Walter E Williams confirms, at least with his esteemed opinion, every point I've made in this thread and in others. Williams is one of those with the uncanny knack of making complex sound simple and obvious. Enjoy if you wish but I understand if this one is too long. Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcugkz-5u4Q

P.S. If you only listen to about 30 seconds starting at 36:20...

[ScottM]

It's quite a long video at 42 minutes but Professor Walter E Williams confirms, at least with his esteemed opinion, every point I've made in this thread and in others. Williams is one of those with the uncanny knack of making complex sound simple and obvious. Enjoy if you wish but I understand if this one is too long. Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcugkz-5u4Q

Well I would be a hypocrite if I didn't watch it after goading others for refusing to read a conservative article I posted about Net Neutrality, wouldn't I? Just give me a couple days if you could - I want to clear my preconceptions before setting aside the hour. OK? I don't want to watch it already preparing for a rebuttal.

[muggsy]

If you want to get the best education that money can buy concerning the economy and free capitalism you need look no further than Walter Williams.

[knkali]

As I am at the limits of my ability to clearly explain my thoughts on this discussion, I will let one of the masters speak for me in counterpoint to Scott's eloquent rebuttal. Scott I appreciate your kind words yet I also detect some jabs at my POV and my good friends here on the forum. But I think they are harmless in the long run and I think these discussions give us the chance to delve deeper into...and understand more clearly...what we feel but sometimes cannot articulate. On that we agree.

It's quite a long video at 42 minutes but Professor Walter E Williams confirms, at least with his esteemed opinion, every point I've made in this thread and in others. Williams is one of those with the uncanny knack of making complex sound simple and obvious. Enjoy if you wish but I understand if this one is too long. Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcugkz-5u4Q

P.S. If you only listen to about 30 seconds starting at 36:20...

W. Williams says the same message as M. Friedman. Both are excellent IMHO.

[marcinstl]

here's a disturbing thought for the conservatives--- the people they love to hate, the Democrats have as much to do with old school liberal Dems (FDR, for example) as what is now called the Repulican party has to do with Eisenhower. todays Dems can be divided into 2 groups: the progressive liberals (all 6 or 7 of them) and what is jokingly called "New Dems", better know as Wall St. Dems. (remember it was BJ Clinton that signed the law getting rid of Glass-Stegal. Phil Gramm and wife wrote it, Clinton signed it. let the banking bubble begin!). the only Dem capable of fronting for Wall St. and winning in 2016 is Hillary. shes' the only one who Wall St. will fund (bought and paid for).
the Republicans, called the "Stupid Party" by Bobby Jindal, has in the minds of a large sector of Americans, proved Bobby right. from Boehner to Gohmert, from McConnell to Bachmann, ya just can't find a dumber box of rocks. hard pressed to find any that are more arrogant and crazy too.
sorry folks but here it is 2015 and this is what we got to run our alleged democracy. good luck. good shooting.

[b4uqzme]

Well I would be a hypocrite if I didn't watch it after goading others for refusing to read a conservative article I posted about Net Neutrality, wouldn't I? Just give me a couple days if you could - I want to clear my preconceptions before setting aside the hour. OK? I don't want to watch it already preparing for a rebuttal.

Not really. Our Net Neutrality thread wasn't really about Net Neutrality so I kinda give the members a free pass if they didn't want to read all that. I offer you the same pass here. You needn't watch it if your objective is simply to formulate a rebuttal. But if you want to hear what I've been trying to communicate...from someone much more articulate than I...you may find it worthwhile.

[b4uqzme]

W. Williams says the same message as M. Friedman. Both are excellent IMHO.

...And Sowell too. All three seem to have a way about them...the ability to speak in words that I find very easy to comprehend. And we're blessed to find a huge library of their work available on video. Blessed I say because their books are pretty long-winded.